


Collections of a Jael Nature

by PossiblyPJ



Category: Rooster Teeth Productions RPF
Genre: M/M, jael project, prompt collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PossiblyPJ/pseuds/PossiblyPJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My own contribution to the Jael project over on tumblr. The goal is to post a short story for each of the 26 prompts given and will be completed over time. I hope you enjoy.</p><p>Everyone's prompts can be viewed at sailingthejaelship.tumblr.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Artist (any kind)

**Author's Note:**

> Alternately titled: The Cop and the Vandal (But That Really Doesn't Matter)

Jack saw the man quite often. They both had the same grocery night, and he would pass him on the streets every once and awhile. If anyone asked, that would be how Jack would justify noticing the change in the stranger’s clothing. That, and the fact that he was a cop. Cops were supposed to notice those kinds of things.

The man was usually pretty casual, always wearing a t-shirt or a hoodie of some sort. The change was that, when Jack would see him on the street, he was always wearing a hoodie and the hood was always up. Now, an overly concerned citizen would be worried about gangs at this point; however, Jack couldn’t bring himself to picture the man participating in any form of violence. He had the look of a baby giraffe.

Understand that Jack is not an idiot. He’s good at what he does. He noticed when the man started hovering around certain alleyways, and he certainly noticed when graffiti art would appear there the next day. Don’t get him wrong, they looked fucking awesome. They just had rather stupid messages such as, “I think I’m gonna need a screwdriver.” and, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Everyone on the force got a bang out of them. Jack’s partner, Geoff, seemed to think that this guy was the greatest thing since sliced bread. No one really cared that it was vandalism. There were worse things to worry about, so the force just let him be.

Jack, however, was curious. The man seemed rather average. What would spur him to take up that sort of hobby?

Thus began Jack’s quest to get to know this guy. He refused to confront him at the grocery store. Could you imagine how awkward it would be to have that conversation when a stranger just wants to get to the canned peaches that you’re conveniently blocking? No, instead he waited to approach the guy the next time he saw him on the street.

It was only a few days later that Jack, walking home from work, came across the man leaning against a lamp post. A lamp post that was conveniently close to an alleyway. Jack hadn’t thought of what he should say or do. He just decided to fuck it and walked over the man.

“Hi there.” Goddamn it. He could do better than that.

“Hey.” Luckily, the man didn’t seem to mind that some random cop had walked up to him. He must have figured out that they didn’t care about his hobby. Shit, what was Jack supposed to say next.

“You know, you’re kind of a stalker.” the man spoke.

“W-what?”

“Stalker. You know, creepy photos, awkward phone calls. Except, you just suck at it.” This was not how Jack expected this to go. Then again, how had he expected this to go?

“I’m not stalking you.”

“Suuure you’re not.”

“No, really. I— ” Jack was cut off as the man held out his hand.

“My name’s Joel, by the way. But I’m sure you already knew that.” the man— Joel— said with a wink.

“I’m not stalking you,” He shook the hand. “But I’m Jack. Jack Patillo.”

“Well, it’s nice to finally meet you Jack Patillo. Actually talking to a person is a much better way to get to know them than creeping on them.” Jack didn’t bother protesting at this point. “And loitering on the sidewalk probably isn’t the best way to have a conversation when there is a perfectly good diner down the street.” At that, Joel turned and walked away, presumably toward the previously mentioned place. Jack, after a moment of thought, followed after him.

 

A few weeks down the road and several more encounters (dates, Jack supposed he could call them) later, Geoff greeted him one morning by shoving a cell phone in his face. On the screen was a picture, a familiar style of graffiti (Joel called them Quotes), a new one that Jack hadn’t seen before.

“At least take the police out to dinner before you fuck them.”


	2. Kid!Fic (them as kids)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternately titled: At the Park (But You're Here, So I Guess That's Okay)

“Awww, do you have to go?”

“Yeah, my mom’s here.”

Jack pouted. His sister had said she would pick him up when the little hand pointed at the 5. Looking at his watch (a super-cool Hulk one that he’d gotten for his birthday), it was only a little past the 4. Jack knew that that was a long time.

“What am I supposed to do with no one to play with?”

“I dunno. Doesn’t Hawkeye go on some missions on his own sometimes?”

“Yeah, but that’s no fun.” Why did Geoff have to leave? It wasn’t as much fun playing Wolverine and Hawkeye when there was no Wolverine.

“I gotta go. I’ll see ya later.” Geoff shouted, running towards his mom.

“Bye.” He didn’t need Geoff anyway. He could have fun on his own. Maybe.

He began heading towards the swings, but a weird sight stopped him. There was a boy, probably the same age as him, sitting under a tree. He had a Barbie in his hands.

Jack freaking loved Barbies. Katie let him play with her’s every once and awhile, and it was Jack’s favorite thing to do. Swings forgotten, he changed his travel towards the boy.

“Hi.” The boy looked up as Jack spoke. He didn’t look familiar, but there were a lot of people that Jack didn’t know.

“Hi.” The other boy hadn’t reacted much. Jack’s eyes were drawn to the Barbie lying on the boy’s lap.

“Could I play with you?” He held up his Hawkeye figure, hoping it would help the other boy to say ‘yes’.

He seemed to eye his toy for a moment before looking back to his own. “Sure.”

“I’m Jack by the way.” Jack sat down in front of the boy. “What’s your name?”

“Joel.” He held up his Barbie. “This is Sheila.”

“Oh, cool. This is Hawkeye.”

“I know who Hawkeye is.”  
“Oh.” Well, Jack should have known that. Cool kids knew about the Avengers, and this kid had to be pretty cool to be playing with a Barbie.

“What game do you want to play?” Jack asked.

-

Hawkeye went on one of his most exciting missions yet. His assignment was to track down the Great Destroyer known as Sheila and stop her from stealing the Acorn of Truth from the Asgardians. Turns out that she was too awesome to stop and they ended up having tea together and talking about boys.

“Jack, it’s time to go!” Said boy turned to see his sister walking towards him. Checking his watch, the hand was actually past the 5.

“Who’s your friend?” she asked, reaching them.

“This is Joel! He’s awesome at playing Barbie!” Joel bashfully looked away at that.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Joel.” Katie smiled at him. “I hate to say this, but it’s time to head home, Jack.”

“Aww.” Jack turned to Joel. “It was loads of fun playing with you!”

Joel was enveloped in hug and, for a moment, he simply stood there. Though Jack couldn’t see, a soft blush had spread across the cheeks of the other boy. Slowly, but surely, the hug was returned.

Breaking the embrace, Jack began walking away with his sister.

“Bye Joel! I’ll see ya later!”

“Bye.” Joel uttered.

They both hoped to meet again.


	3. Soulmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternately titled: We Match (But I Think We Should Have Figured It Out Sooner)

Stories told of two lovers from long ago. So in love were they, they created a symbol all their own and, enduring the pain, had it branded onto their bodies on matching spots.

Ever since that day, humans were born with marks somewhere on their bodies. The most common area tended to be on the arms or chest, but it wasn’t unusual to have it elsewhere. There were even some unlucky suckers who had them on their asses (and didn’t they have a fun time finding their match). Thus a fashion trend came into being to have holes carefully cut into clothing in order to show off your mark, hoping that the person with the corresponding mark would recognize it.

Luckily Joel was not ass-marked. Positioned on his left upper arm, almost on his shoulder, was a simple compass rose. Not colored or complicated like marks tended to be, it was like a black inked tattoo, only just small enough to be covered by his hand. Instead of the normal direction abbreviations, however, the compass held what everyone supposed were the initials of Joel and his soul mate. West and east were replaced by Joel’s ‘J’ and ‘H’, and north and south by some stranger’s ‘J’ and ‘P’.

Throughout his life, everyone would tell Joel how lucky he was. It was a rare occurrence that a mark revealed something else about the person who matched it. He didn’t really care though, Joel would meet his soul mate when he met them. There was no need to show his mark off or broadcast it on the internet like most teenagers did these days. Joel was content to wait.

He met Jack at a poker game with Burnie. Normally Joel wouldn’t have taken notice of a name starting with ‘J’, but everyone was a bit tipsy at the time. And so the ginger wormed his way into their hearts and ended up being hired for Rooster Teeth. Things continued on as normal.

Then one average day Joel was sitting at his desk going through his email when something caught his eye. It was the thing that listed everyone who received the email, and for some reason Jack’s was bothering him. Was it spelled wrong? Nope, all the letters were right. The double ‘t’s and ‘l’s and the capitol ‘J’ and ‘P’ and....

Oh. Okay then.

The mark was fairly easy to miss, Joel justified. It was just high enough on his arm that even most short sleeved shirts covered it up. Now that he thought about it actually, he wasn’t even sure if any of his non-long term friend co workers had ever even gotten a good look at his mark.

After a moment, he stood and began walking to the fairly newly appointed Achievement Hunter office. It’d only make sense for Jack to be in there.

Sure enough, Joel was correct. Geoff was there too of course, the mark on his forearm accented by his sleeves. Luckily they weren’t currently interacting, both editing seperate videos. Joel took advantage of the men’s distractions and walked over to Jack.

The sitting man was still oblivious to Joel’s presence, the headphones covering his ears hindering his ability of knowing what was going on around him. How the heck was Joel supposed to get Jack’s attention without scaring the daylights out of him? He opted to tap him on the shoulder.

Predictably, Jack was startled. The tap had worked, however, as the headphones were removed and his attention was now averted to Joel.

Crap. What was he supposed to do now?

Not having any words to say, Joel decided to take action. Carefully, he used two of his fingers to lift Jack’s sleeve. Sure enough, the mark was there. There was a scuffle of feet as Geoff, having figured out that something important was going on, made his way out of the room. The two obviously had some talking to do.


End file.
